London Calling

So my trusty travel partner left me stranded with his cousin's fiance in an apartment in The Netherlands. I spent the day there playing with the cat, and attempted to do some laundry, where I managed to flood the laundry room, and cause a leak through the floor into the shoe store below the apartment. I swear, you leave me alone for just one minute...

Anyway the next morning i woke up (after missing my alarm) and ran to the train station headed to Amsterdam. I got to my gate and met two girls from Long Island headed to London themselves. One of them had been studying Eastern medicine in India for 2 months which I happen to be an expert on, and the other is a social worker...also a hobby of mine.

We chatted for a while, then were seperated during the flight, and reunited at the baggage carouselle. They were headed somewhere on the tube, and I was headed anywhere, so I joined them. We ended up in downtown London, hunting for the CBRE building where a man she had met a year earlier worked at. They had met once, kept in touch online, and now my backpack was being stored on the 5th floor in the fire closet. That was fantastic because while Smith did take some of my stuff with him when he left, my backpack still weighs 40 pounds.

We headed out to explore, me and the two 25 year olds, and a couple of pounds in my pocket. The exchange rate in England is 2-1 however everything has the same price number value so you're basically paying twice as much. Scoop od ice cream, £5=$10. There will be no ice cream for me.

We went out to a dinner I couldn't afford, where our new friend invited the 3 of us to stay the night...even after I told him that I had met the girls eight hours earlier. That was also fantastic because it looked like I was going to be sharing a tent with the protesters across from Wesminster Abbey with the "Free Palestine" signs everywhere.

We cruised around all day, I had a few conversations with an ATM machine, I would say "Please give me money..." and it kept responding "Insufficient Funds!"

Headed to Oxford to stay with a girl i met in Vietnam...out of internet time, I'm alive, stay well.

- Josh